This page is a companion page to blog post: A bit about Tala – particularly the discussions held in the comment section of that post.

This post revolves around whether a song in Adi tiSra gati (which is also rendered in rUpaka) has a natural, inalienable tiSra gati feel to it that will be lost when rendered in rUpaka. The example quoted by Vijay was himAdri suTe.

Please note that I am not taking a counter stance here – but merely offering material for possible further discussion.

Breakdown in Adi tiSra gati
Here is how the first line breaks down in Adi tiSra gati:

himadri sute breakdown per tisra adi

Legend:

B is “beat” (as in how tala is kept in tiSra gati).

P is “pause”

Breakdown in Rupaka (cApu style, catuSra gati)

Here is how the same melody breaks down in rUpaka (cApu style):

himadri sute breakdown in rupaka (capu)

Legend

B is beat when you keep rUpaka tALa (cApu style)

W is wave/vichu of the rUpaka tALa (cApu style)

Open questions
Additional checks for you to see:

Is the melody itself (i.e. just the tune – without the percussive part) inherently in tiSra gati?

Is the tune influenced by tala keeping (my guess: yes because of our conditioning, but to perhaps varying degrees for different people)

Is the mridangist playing patterns that make sense only for tiSra gati (and tiSra gati Adi), or is he playing to the melody and thus is not as unambiguously associated with tiSra gati and tiSra gati Adi?

I agree with Vijay in that the mridangist would pull out many of his tiSra gati (Adi) tricks because he sees the vocalist putting tiSra gati Adi. So the real questions may be

If the same melody(sans any uninitention tiSra gati Adi tala keeping coerced influences) is sung in rUpaka cApu, and a mridangist accompanies (even after knowing it is rUpaka cApu and pulls out rUpaka tricks) – whether it would ‘sound off’?

How much would his Adi tiSra gati (8*3 = 24) tricks have in common with his rUpaka tricks?

What if they are in a studio, the vocalist is in one room and mridangist in another and mridangist cant see nor hear the tala being kept? So here the mridangist is forced to play for the song – how will he play for the second time each sangati is sung i.e. after he has a chance to discern the melody and inherent rhythm of the sangati when he hears it the first time. Of course this is a hypothetical and purely experimental scenario not matched in real world – and thus not much of practical use besides knowing about the true nature of rhythm – perhaps?

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23 Responses to “A bit about Tala – himadri sute”

Great idea! Let us see where this goes! To attempt a quick response before I turn in:

1) It would not sound off. This, I had indicated in one of my earlier response. The song can be sung to Rupakam without anyone being any the wiser (Sama eduppu). But the “tension” (hard to describe this any better) would be gone.

2) Hard to say, and certainly beyond my league to give a meaningful answer, but you can tell some standard patterns when you hear them…let me see if a more careful listening can help prvoide some examples – I am listening to some nice endgings on the neraval as I write this…

3) Difficult to prove, but I think even seasoned veterans would play Rupakam if they are not familiar with the krithi (of course in this case, the chances of that would be close to impossible).

Will try to chip in with more soon…I think the answer to Q3 (first set – about how the mrudangist is playing) above would be crucial…

BTW, would it be worthwhile to replicate this on rasikas or at least inite some laya vidwans to chip in here (Balaji/Ram/Sankirnam etc.)…I have a feeling this is evolving way beyond my league!Arun: Thanks Vijay. I did post a request in rasikas.org for them to chip in

No, it need not – but it gels better with Sama eduppu (in Adi Tisram it starts on 1st beat 5th matra)Arun: Really? I most certainly do not think so 🙂 ! Why?
1. *Even* if we pay attention to angas, the mAm of pAhimAm which hits at the 5th beat of tiSra Adi, would hit at first beat after 2 avarthas if you take it NOT in samam. *You* or vk would argue that it would be better fit 😉
2. Also check out http://www.karnatik.com/nc1009a.jpg (rupaka/t.eka tala notation for this song from karnatik.com) – There also it is not samam!
There is no need to shift talam in this case to fit melody – the tiSra Adi maps to rUpaka exactly as-is – the only thing that changes is the grouping of sub-beats (in 3s vs. in 4s). It may not do so in all cases, but in cases like this it certainly does here.
BTW. perhaps you did not pay enough attention to the tiSra picture :)? The eduppu shown there is exactly what you mention – only think you are mentioning mEl kAlam (i.e. divide each akshara into 6 sub-beats, and point the edupp at 5/6), but I have outlined normal kAlam (i.e. divide each akshara into 3 sub-beats i.e. ta-ki-Ta and eduppu is at the start of Ta.

While things I am likely to be constraied for time until the weekend, just wondering about the following expermient which will call upon all your technical resources, if at all it can be done…

Can we overlay a rupakam mrudangam track on this krithi? Of course that would mean the following would have to be done:

1) Erase rhythm from one track and vocals from the other
2) “stretch/shorten” the duration of the avarthanas so that they correspond with reasonable accuracy (although things will almost surely go haywire after 2-3 avarthanas!)
3) Stitch the 2 tracks together…

Possible at all? Of course there is an ethical dimension too but as a learning resource it should be unexceptionable

Arun: Not sure, separating rhythm from tracks can be bear. But besides, this is misguided unless it is taken from a rUpaka rendition of the same song (is that what you mean?).

My latest wild theory (still chewing on it), is that songs that are 12/24 count based fall into 2 categories
1. Sort of gati neutral or more accurately “gati flexible” and thus can be rendered in tiSra gati or catuSra gati. I mean the percussive accompaniment can provide a predominantly tiSra gati feel or catuSra gati feel. I think Syama Sastri’s songs: Sankari Sankaru, this one, as well as karuNanidhi ilalO (tODi) all fall into this. Providing a predominanly tiSra gati as percussive accompaniment here adds a unique flavor, that is different from providing a predominantly catuSra gait. But here the percussion “adds to the rhythm” or say clarifies it – since the rhythm in the melody itself is malleable/flexible to both gatis/gaits
2. Inherently weighted/slanted towards tiSra gati in their internal makeup (i.e. inherent rhythm in the melody), and thus make sense only with tiSra gati accompaniment. Some examples I know are: rAmacandra ditadu (annamayya, dwijavanti), rAmabhadra raghuvIra (badrachalam ramadas, anandabhairavi), or some of the note songs (rama janArdana that TMK sings in Sri ramam).
3. Inherently slanted towards catusra gati and these are the rUpaka tala songs.

Revise my opinion on the eduppu – 2nd beat would certainly sound more elegant. I was basically tossing up between samam and arai eduppu and found the former a better fit.
And yeah, I did mean in “mel kaalam”. Also I can see how 2nd beat in Rupakam maps to 5th matra in Adi Tisram.

I meant Rupaka tala from any song – if we had the song in Tisram we wouldn’t have a problem would we? But I can see now, that it is hare-brained…

This “gati neutral” that you mention is a Syama Sastri special. This is why I singled out this kriti – the tisra nadai is hidden and the obvious nadai seems to be Rupakam. The Tisram structure is revealed only when played to the right tala – thus the tala signature becomes important.

Rama Nee Vadukonduko in Kalyani is another Adi Tisram composition that does not seem to have the characteristic tisram gait

I will be very honest. I have listened (live and recording) Sankari Sankaru quite a few times and I fail to see the tiSra gait in it even after paying attention to the mridangam accompaniment (I am listening to this rendition now).

I am arriving at this opinion by contrasting this with the other songs like rAmachandra ditadu etc. where the gait is very obvious – so much so that you can put tala like standard Adi and not tiSra gati Adi, and you will automatically space your aksharas in triplets (i.e. in tiSra gati). That to me is a sign of the inherent rhythm in the melody. To me, this is completely absent in these SS songs. The only natural spacing that occurs to be is catusra gati.

So a part of me boldly wonders that a “steady tisra gait” (even if underlying, and not obvious) is
not there in the melody itself in these cases. However, it was employed (by SS himself) as an interesting variation – a new concept, an innovation i.e. to put a tiSra gait for a song that does not have that gait itself.

Then I suggest, that while this is certainly an innovation – it could be might as well one that can be similarly applied to many if not all standard rUpaka songs – i.e. there is nothing in the melody line of these songs that is so different from that of the standard rUpaka songs, that leads me to think that tiSra gati applies (and fits) to this set, but not to the other set
(PS: this is just a bold suggestion 🙂 ) .

I tend to hold on to the thesis that inherent in the song is the Beat stresses and sub-beat stresses. The song has to establish where the beat is before providing any syncopated patterns.

So, if you buy into this, then the closest thala is rupakam based on the “main beat identification” that is inherent in the song and tisra nadai Adi if you want to create a syncopated tension. That is a perfectly valid musical technique. Vijay talks about the tension that the tisra adi creates. Yes, definitely i tis there and that is due to the syncopation. If the natural major stresses do not match the major stresses of thala keeping or the mridangist’s stroke, then syncopation happens which results in the tension. They can play some beautiful patterns with the tension build up and tension release if they mix up the tisra way of accompaniment creating tension and then on to rupakam way of accompanument for tension release. Jazz does this quite well and it is quite interesting CM folks do this so naturally. I would like to see them mix it up, though.

Arun, I think I understand what you are saying about the 12/24. If you buy my above thesis, that should shed some light on the musical reasons for your classifications. I think you yourself have pretty much said the above.

So, my conclusion is, the song carries the major beats, minor beats and hence the nadai. It is inherent to the song. Rhythmic accompaniment can match it or not match it for various aesthetic effects.

BTW, though I say the song has the rhythm, there can be multiple interpretation of where the main beat is. For example, I felt very comfortable with half eduppu Rupakam.

I grant you that the ‘Mam’ of pahimam acts like an anchor which makes it same as what Arun noted which is “starting on the beat”. But the way Mam is sung, the second part of Mam can be considered a major stress. Then the eduppu falls on half. That is OK with me since ‘ma’ of himadri can be very reasonably considered as the major stress point.

For me your thesis is still quite nebulous perhaps because i do not quite understand all of it. Perhaps you can clarify more – actually quantify it more. Without that, it seems as “loose” (actually more) as saying this tala fits this song :).

Now, I can understand major-beat and minor beat, and syncopation in terms of a “steady rhythm” as say a in western music drum beats. For example, contrast a regular rock-and-roll beat vs. say reggae – where the latter is syncopated.

But in CM, the rhythm is not kept as steady as it is in usually in WM. While I do think it still has an “overall rhythm” it is somewhat hard to quantify because the subunits of cm melody sub-units can be arranged/grouped in more diverse ways – making the inherent rhythm not as ordered (or say obviously ordered) as in popular WM songs. While I also am unable to quantify it more, I think the demarcations of the sub-units are what perhaps define these beat stresses.

But i also want you guys to think about this:
1. How much do you think does the tala keeping in tiSra naDai (i.e a beat-beat-pause for every akshara) add to you sense of tightness/syncopation say in the above case?
2. How much of the tightness is there if you do not keep tala (i.e. how much of it is there in the way that mridangist accompanies to the song)?

Also, if you know a rUpaka tALa song – try putting tiSra naDai talam to it and see how it goes. Do you sense a more tightness? Then your tala keeping may be influencing this. Remember again that mridangist plays for the song and not for tala keeping (although gati implied by tala keeping can influence him in how he plays for the song).

I will post a song that is truly in tiSra naDai. You tell me if the feel of the rhythm is one of syncopation or something else (i.e. it is different from catuSra gati, and is that somehow adding to a sense of syncopation – just because it is not in the ubiquitous and thus seemingly natural catuSra gati).

Regarding 12/24 songs
I have already modified my theory 🙂 – I now think the songs in group 1 (gati neutral) and group 3 (catusra gati slanted) arent really that different. Basically group 1 is group 3.

Why?

I now (albeit not assuredly) think this concept of tiSra naDai for SS songs can indeed be extended to standard rUpaka tALa songs. I tried for the couple songs I know (e.g. sItamma mAyamma) – and it seems to have the same feel as for Sankari Sankaru – as in tala keeping. There is enough match to the tala and enough “half-off” (that you also have with rUpaka), that it seems almost as natural – albeit tougher due to my conditioning of learning that song in rUpaka tALa in catuSra gati.

One difference though is that in Sankari Sankaru and himAdri Sute (and karuNanidhi ilalO), the lines are twice as long than standard rUpaka tala song like sItamma mAyamma. So if you put say tiSra Adi to sItamma mAyamma, then the whole pallavi takes only one avarthanam – so you sort of have to repeat some sections (sort of how when people render mahAgaNapatim in Adi).

So I am leaning towards all these SS songs inherently are just like any standard rUpaka songs just with lengthier lines, except that they are accompanied to tiSra gati and intended so by the composer.

To be bolder, I would even dare suggest that if the mridangist always played to the melody in both cases, a catuSra gati accompaniment,may not sound that much different what we hear above 🙂 But this is for group #1 and #3. There is different however for songs in group #2, that I think do have a strong slant towards tiSra gati in their melody (again, i will post one later).

Ok, here are some songs that (to me) have inherent tiSra naDai in it which is also accentuated by the accomanpiment – i.e. group #2 above. Basically I can put tALam like standard Adi without any effort – and I automatically space by aksharas in tiSra naDai.

I am with you about your recent conclusions on chathusra jati rupaka is just that and tisra gati way is an interesting variation.

As per my theory, I guess I am saying the same thing. What matters is the inherent gathi of the song, chathusra or tisra. That is the primary rhythmic structure. I think we are on the same wavelength.

What I am saying beyond that is, which is really a natural corollary, sub-beats ( the gathi characteristic ) does not exist in isolation. It exists in the context of the outer beat. I am claiming that the outer beat structure has to exist in the song and it is just not a by product of mridangam accompniment or thala keeping.

(BTW, I am considering mridangam accompanument and thala keeping at the same level for this discussion, they are all external reflections of the laya)

So, if you play using tisra patterns to a chathusra laya, you get some tension due to syncopation.

I am using syncopation in a generic sense as above. Major-Minor syncopation is just a special case of the above.

Think about this. In majority of the songs, something in the song makes you keep beats to it including the eduppu. So, if all the song communicates is the sub-beat, we would not be able to figure out the arai eduppu. You need the beat boundary so eduppu even makes sense to talk about.

>Also, if you know a rUpaka tALa song – try putting tiSra >naDai talam to it and see how it goes. Do you sense a more >tightness?

Well, I tried it briefly. I have to get back to it. If I keep continuous sub-beats, it was just fine. But if I try to expect a major stress at the beginning of groups of three, then there was tension. But as you said, it was not too bad, the half-off feeling is there. The only thing is, it was there periodically, it waxes and wanes which adds its own charm.Arun: Actually I find it to feel much exactly like in Sankari Sankaru.

Syncopation can be achieved by two things. A minor external stress matching with a Major internal stress… A major external stress matching with a minor internal stress. ( External – thala, internal – laya ). I think the tension is more with the first one. Obviously, if you are off by one or half both kinds of mismatches can occur periodically.

So one thing we have to pay closer attention to verify is, if SS has done some thing clever by stressing two contiguous sub-beats. That definitely feels that way for me in the “ma ,” of pahimam. Both of those syllables are more or less equally stressed. So each one can be matched with a major external stress. May be that pattern is there throughout and hence both ways of external thala keeping fits without too much syncopation.Arun: I think you are assuming that a triplet beat ta-ki-Ta implies first two must be stressed, and the second must be left alone. I argue this is entirely due to our conditioning in putting tala – and does not necessarily reflected in laya (and in fact has nothing to do with the laya). But I do think that singers also get influenced by it a bit here – by this conditioning.

From a rhythmic standpoint, they are 3 equal and equivalent parts. So there is no requirement that mA of the pAhimAm must be sung as mA A m to make it tiSra gati – and if it werent it would not be in tiSra gati. It can simply be mA m (i.e. a long note followed by a short note – the long being twice as long). In fact, if you take the converse case, there are many occurrences in catuSra gati songs where you have a 2+1 combo (in context of say 2+1 2+1 2+2) where the both of the 2 matras are stressed. Again this is because laya is more diverse.

Oh forgot to mention. IF by simply putting tiSra Adi taLa for a standard rUpaka tALa, you are feeling “tension”, then can it be so that the tension you feel in the case of these SS song’s can also be attributed (partly, if not fully) to the conscious act of putting tala?

Also, while the stress-stress-nostress is indeed a common tiSrra beat (e.g. we find it in waltz etc.), it is not the only one, as in it is not a mandatory ingredient. That is what I meant by my response above. In CM, again we dont use a “very orderly” percussive accompaniment like in popular music (i.e. a steady waltz beat)), since it is specific to the melody and mirrors it. Tthe patterns (in the melody as well as in the rhythm) are more diverse, and hence an obvious stress-stress-nostress we may presume need not be there.

>I think you are assuming that a triplet beat ta-ki-Ta
> implies first two must be stressed,

Actually, I meant to convey something else. I am trying to speculate why certain SS songs in rupakam feels OK in tisra gathi. My minimal definition of “Feels OK”, is that the laya needs to communicate a major stress on the first sub-beat of a beat ( there can be more ). It need not necessarily be on every beat but enough so that the beat pattern is established.
You will have buy into this axiom that laya has to communicate beats and not just sub-beats, otherwise we have to discuss that since without that axiom, none of this will apply.

So, if SS has laid out the laya such that for both rupaka and tisra gathi adi, beat boundaries can be detected independent of each other, then we have something here. They will have different eduppus with respect to the beat. To accomplish that he has to sprinkle in extra major stresses that what is needed for a single laya framework songs. Again, he does not have to do it for every beat boundary in the two laya framework but enough so that it :Feels OK.

I think you are trying to see if there is something in the inherent laya itself that makes it amenable to tiSra gati (compared to standard rupaka songs)

I now think that if one starts putting tiSra naDai for many rUpaka songs, after a while we will start to think “it feels ok for tiSra gati”.

Basically these SS songs seem catusra gati based but simply put to tiSra gati tala. And it works because of some natural correlation between rUpaka and Adi tiSra gati – both can fit 24-unit cycle, both can provide natural division at 12 i.e. half of that 24-unit cycle. So the innovation here may not be in the inherent laya of the melody, but in providing a “rhythm framework” that complements the melody. But even then like I said, I myself cannot sense a predominant tiSra gait in the mridangam accompaniment itself – so the complementing part seems more localized to the tala keeping (to me) 🙂

Arun, do you buy into my axiom about major stresses on the first sub-beat of a beat ( to the extent I described above ).

If not, how do we naturally find the eduppu of a song ( with out consulting notations or thala keeping sounds )?Arun: Yes I do believe there is a something about the stresses that helps us discern the beat (and thus say tap to it subconciously). But still I think it is too nebulous at this point to go anywhere concrete/useful with it. I guess I do not see how this has bearing on appropriateness to gati.

I do agree that the naturally tisra gathi songs feel different from these supposedly dual-laya SS songs under discussion.

>I guess I do not see how this has bearing on
>appropriateness to gati.

sub-beats define the gati, You sort of see that there are beat boundaries defined by major stresses. So a corollary is, the first sub-beat of a beat gets the major stress. The naturally tisra-gathi songs are set up that way where the first sub-beat gets the major stress, i.e every third sub-beat gets the major stress ( enough number of times to establish that pattern ). With group 1, since they are in chatusra gathi, they will get major stress every other sub-beat. So for group 1, if we try to keep the beat as tisra gathi, you will get the syncopation, since the major stress would not fall on every third beat of thala keeping.

Arun: IMO, your answer mostly applies to why a tiSra beat gives feeling of syncopation to some songs, but the question is what has this got to do with “appropriateness of a melody” to tisra gati (which I thought was what you were looking for in SS songs?).

I do agree that we can perceive c.gati different from t.gati and that does have do with where the “stresses” fall “on the whole”. And, yes the simple definition of gait implies beats as it implies that such a beat would be sub-divided in multiples of 2s or 3s.

But it does not mean that a rhythm cycle of say 36 sub-units must somehow “give off” 12 or 6 beats for it to be in tiSra gait. Atleast cm melodies seem more complex than this (at least the c.gati ones which are ubiquitous). In other words, it is too simplistic to think that every other sub-beat in catusra gati gets a stress, and every third does so in tiSra gati. If you observe the swara breakdown of cm songs i.e. as “melodic sub units” (which btw lend themselves directly to sollus and thus the laya), they weave more complicated patterns which do not conform to these simple/orderly world, or even obvious correlation to gati. My teacher sometimes points out the underlying rhythm in the swara breakdown for songs – very cool. The stress sometimes falls on beat, sometimes skips (many) beats, sometimes falls off the beat, sometimes skips (many beats), sometimes weaves seemingly other gati patterns etc. – and all of this can happen in the same song! For example, in catusra gati songs itself in sangatis, you may see melodic patterns of the form 3+3+6, or 5+3, or 7+5+4 (no emphasis within each of these units – from the raga aesthetic point each set is a logical sub-unit).

But if we take the % of stress points over the whole song, maybe they follow something like “enough” stress points are separated by n sub-units, where n is a multiple of 2 for c.gati, and 3 for t.gati. This also generally indicates that the stress points themselves fall on c.gati/t.gati locations, but is a little more flexible as it allows for stress points to move from on-beat to off-beat (and vice-versa) within lines.

>But if we take the % of stress points over the whole
>song, maybe they follow something like “enough”
>stress points are separated by n sub-units,
>where n is a multiple of 2 for c.gati, and 3 for t.gati.

Perfect. That is exactly what I was getting at. I am with you on everything else you wrote as well. A perfectly acceptable and high musical and aesthetic fuzzy definition of laya.

These ‘high enough’ % stress points is what establishes the structure within which they have quite a bit of run with laya.

As a corollary, when the % is high enough we do not feel the syncopation stress that much.

>the question is what has this got to do with “
>appropriateness of a melody” to tisra gati
>(which I thought was what you were looking for in SS songs?).

Yes. Extending the above model, if % is high enough for c.gathi and not so high enough for t.gathi, then we will feel the t.gathi to be more explicitly syncopated and hence the palpable tension.

Speculating even further, those SS songs that that does not sound syncopated in c.gathi and t.gathi have high enough stress points for both gathis by careful sprinkling of extra stress points to bring the t.gathi % high enough.

Not that I know the above to be true, but something to look at. Your notation for himadri sute in both c.gathi and t.gathi is extremely helpful and I do see those extra stress points there. But we can not tell for sure until we do a similar thing for another c.gathi song ( say rupaka to maintain the same theme ) that is traditionally not thought of ‘t.gathi’ compatible.

Arun, now that we have a fuzzy musical definition of gathi and beat, can such a % based definition be applicable to thalas, where we can say there is a purvanga portion and a uttaranga portion. I want to restore some semblance of internal structure to an avarthanam cycle. Anga structure may be over defining it, but how about Purvanga-Uttaranga split in a lot of compositions? ( Let us limit this investigation to the class of 5 triputa thalams ). Just to be sure, the exercise is to discover that split existing a high enough % of times in high enough % of compositions to warrant that internal structure.

Would you say, the % is higher in anupallavi than in Pallavi and the beginning portions of charanam? That is how it felt for me.

On a related note, what we are concluding here can be compared to Sarva-laghu vs kanakku that is normally talked in regards to kalpanaswara. So, in compositions, if the % is very high, then we can charcterize that as sarva-laghu laya and if the % is relatively low, then we can talk about it as kanakku laya. It may not match exactly like kalpanaswara, but just a point of comparison to make sure our concepts and understandings are on the same wavelength.

Sure we can look at it but my gut feel says that this may become a case about statistics – where one can simply interpret however one wants to 🙂 – all the more in this case where the definition itself is fuzzy.

Besides at the end what it would prove is something we already know – that is composers can-be (and-were) influenced by the tala, and thus angas – but they are not mandatory markers that must be respected always or even overwhelmingly even within the same song – and thus a correlation of songs to their assigned talas is not unambiguously exclusive.

After all, it is not all talas and angas came after these composers composed these songs. They were there part and parcel of the tradition when they (e.g. trinity) were composing. So it would be natural to assume that the talas and their angas, influenced the composers just like they influence us today – both we and the composers are alike in that regard.

But I think we (rasikas, practitioneers) may have assumed/presumed too much about them than what the composers did. And such an expedition may shed light as to whether that is true or not. Btw, Easier examples may be pancharatna krithis, Syama Sastri’s swarajathis where the swara breakdown etc. are also sung.

Arun, What would it mean to be influenced by ‘angas’? Stress points? or something else as well…Arun: Yes stresses like in lengthy notes (or arudhi). I am not 100% sure I think in many cases you would find that this kind of emphasis more so in the initial parts of each stanza (say first one or two sangatis of pallavi, anupallavi etc.)

Vijay, you mentioned elsewhere that angas may coincide with stress points and may not. So, in your view, what are angas for?